Also consider. If Profits are going up somebody is making more money and more people are going to get kitchens remodeled. So the pie gets bigger. The size of the pie is always fluctuating so you cant say the pie never changes.

I'm throwing generalizations out like dollars at a strip club here, but if the pie gets bigger at the top top end (such as by lowering taxes on the rich), you get a lot less of that flowing back into the economy. If you already have the money for a high-end kitchen remodel, that extra profit isn't going to remodel your kitchen again. Most likely it'll get rolled into investments and savings, and won't contribute to the pie increasing at all.

Capital investment plays no role in economic growth? Only almighty consumer spending?

What a topsy-turvy theory.

If your demand has flatlined or shrunk, your CapEx is going to suffer too, because you'll tend only to be replacing broken equipment.

If you want to see a big uptick in capital investment, you need to give businesses reason to be optimistic about the future. And that needs demand.

I understand demand shortfall and unlocking under- and un-utilized labor, but the simplistic version of consumer spending uber alles has the distinct flavor of someone pushing a perpetual motion machine.

If you want to see a big uptick in capital investment, you need to give businesses reason to be optimistic about the future. And that needsmeans increasing demand through direct infrastructure spending.

With my basic Comcast cable package, I get about half of the channels you just listed (no Nat Geo, Nat Geo Wild, Biography, Smithsonian, ID, BBC America, BBC World News, Bloomberg, Disney, Noggin, The N, Qubo).[/quote]I get those with basic Xfinity (Comcast) where I am. Even with half of them you've replaced PBS.[/quote]

Even taking this as a given (which I don't), there is a significant chunk of the population (according to the Heritage Foundation's number) that doesn't have access to those channels.

They rarely top a million viewers for any program. It just seems like a waste of public money; it's one of those things that everybody pays for so a tiny minority can enjoy it.

PBS has higher ratings than many basic cable channels. Sesame Street is watched by "95% of all American preschoolers." One of the reasons cable providers and small networks are so opposed to a la carte pricing is because under that scheme, a lot of the channels you listed would go away.

US government interest rates (and those on agency MBSs) are low, but capital markets are still highly risk adverse.

This is reflected in a many different ways including: difficulty qualifying for loans at all, very high debt risk premiums, difficulty raising equity capital, the relative strength of value stocks versus growth stocks.

In theory low interest risk free rates are supposed to force capital into higher risk positions, but that doesn't seem to be working at the moment.

As it relates to taxes, I don't think lower taxes will help much either. Perhaps increasing the capital gains and dividend rates would though.

A huge anchor on investment right now is the uncertainty about what Congress is going to do about the expiring tax cuts and the spending cuts. Business can adjust to increases in their costs of doing business. But they don't initiate spending until they know what's coming down the pike.

The debate will cover both foreign and domestic topics and be divided into nine time segments of approximately 10 minutes each. The moderator will ask an opening question, after which each candidate will have two minutes to respond. The moderator will use the balance of the time in the segment for a discussion of the question.

The second presidential debate will take the form of a town meeting, in which citizens will ask questions of the candidates on foreign and domestic issues. Candidates each will have two minutes to respond, and an additional minute for the moderator to facilitate a discussion. The town meeting participants will be undecided voters selected by the Gallup Organization.

Ignoring my comments above, From the government Side how do you increase demand?

Build a transcontinental high-speed railway.Build or repair roads, schools, airports, federal buildings.Employ more people (it doesn't really matter what you hire them to do, just as long as they're being paid, but ideally you'd have some kind of co-ordinated effort with state and local governments to let them do things like increase the number of teachers, hire more people at the DMV so that the lines aren't so damn long, or [even] more people working for the TSA so that you don't have one line open and 20 metal detectors and baggage scanners lying idle)Pay people more (both employees and welfare recipients)Pay unemployment insurance indefinitely (no 99 week cap)Give tax breaks for CapEx, especially CapEx spent on things that are "made in America" (whatever that may mean)

Yeah, from a realistic standpoint PBS/NPR would for the most part maintain the status quo without government funding (for the most part, some small stations in rural areas would die).

From a strategic Democrat standpoint I take the opposite view of Will McAvoy; it makes for a fantastic tool to have the GOP beat Democrats with, because as Romney's whole Big Bird comment shows few things make Republicans look sillier than their outright fanatical hatred of PBS. Democrats should want PBS/NPR to keep funding not because they're valuable entities who won't survive without it (they will) but instead because seeing a rich old white dude bitching creepily about Bert and Ernie being gay is disturbing to everyone who isn't a die-hard Republican.

Do you guys think we should just keep this thread rolling for subsequent debates, or create new ones as they come up? If the former, I can retitle the thread to be more generic.

The only reason I titled it Debate #1 is because four years about we had separate threads for each debate that a mod would lock after a day or two, and because I wanted to get something up and running since people were splitting their comments between three threads. I've no problem with adding an 's' to debates and dropping the #1 if it's easier to have it all in one place.

As for NPR/PBS, I partially agree about it being a good way to make the GOP look creepy. That said, there are groups that don't think government should be supporting the arts in any financial way, and consider NPR/PBS part of that group. I'm not talking about SRB, but people that think federal government should only provide for defense, infrastructure, and public welfare (meaning health services and the like). I personally think it's kind-of sill demarc to make, but there you go.

So despite just talking about not expecting people to trush HuffPo and Kos, etc. links in another thread, I'm going to post one here, because A: it's just a video clip of the debates, and B. it's really not important enough an issue to actually worry about a more "acceptable" source.

Essentially it's a straight-up unedited video of the debate, and at the 11 second mark where the two approach the podium Romney pretty clearly pulls something from his pocket and puts it on the podium. There's really no debate he does this; you can clearly see it. What you can't clearly see is what it is, with the most likely possibilities being either a pocket handkerchief or paper that may or may not contain notes.

Even if one were to assume the worst and assume it's a bullet-pointed list of Romney's plan for the evening I'm not sure it matters. Obama still did a shitty job, and it's not like any of the numbers Romney rattled off were at all accurate; when you're straight up making up shit there really isn't a need to write out the numbers you're making up beforehand. I'm posting this mostly out of curiosity to see what people think.

Edit: Adding a pic from later in the debate of Romney dabbing his face with a hankey:

Do you guys think we should just keep this thread rolling for subsequent debates, or create new ones as they come up? If the former, I can retitle the thread to be more generic.

I'd prefer separate threads, just to keep the different discussions contained and easy to follow. If you go with one long thread, I'd appreciate it if the OP could have links to where the discussions begin for debates 2 & 3.

Wow. That jobs report erased the debate I think. Not just the number itself but the all-out lunacy that came with it. The baldfaced lies from major networks is a little distressing. Even Fox isn't often so obvious. TPM has updated with an amusing counterpoint:

Quote:

Update: The conspiracy crowd may need to expand their theory to the private sector. The consensus from market analysts the day before the report was a 110,000 job gain. The private ADP survey, released earlier this week, found that US businesses added 162,000 jobs.

So despite just talking about not expecting people to trush HuffPo and Kos, etc. links in another thread, I'm going to post one here, because A: it's just a video clip of the debates, and B. it's really not important enough an issue to actually worry about a more "acceptable" source.

Essentially it's a straight-up unedited video of the debate, and at the 11 second mark where the two approach the podium Romney pretty clearly pulls something from his pocket and puts it on the podium. There's really no debate he does this; you can clearly see it. What you can't clearly see is what it is, with the most likely possibilities being either a pocket handkerchief or paper that may or may not contain notes.

Even if one were to assume the worst and assume it's a bullet-pointed list of Romney's plan for the evening I'm not sure it matters. Obama still did a shitty job, and it's not like any of the numbers Romney rattled off were at all accurate; when you're straight up making up shit there really isn't a need to write out the numbers you're making up beforehand. I'm posting this mostly out of curiosity to see what people think.

To be fair, before the debate, I saw some kind of interview with Romney's wife. She said that the first thing Mitt does in every debate it to put his watch on the podium so he can see the time. Then, he writes "Dad" or maybe his dad's name on a piece of paper to remind him of his father. I don't know if any of that is true, but IMO it's plausible.

Also consider. If Profits are going up somebody is making more money and more people are going to get kitchens remodeled. So the pie gets bigger. The size of the pie is always fluctuating so you cant say the pie never changes.

I'm throwing generalizations out like dollars at a strip club here, but if the pie gets bigger at the top top end (such as by lowering taxes on the rich), you get a lot less of that flowing back into the economy. If you already have the money for a high-end kitchen remodel, that extra profit isn't going to remodel your kitchen again. Most likely it'll get rolled into investments and savings, and won't contribute to the pie increasing at all.

Capital investment plays no role in economic growth? Only almighty consumer spending?

What a topsy-turvy theory.

But seriously, trying to figure out the relative impact of personal tax cuts for the wealthy on job creation in small businesses just doesn't even begin to make sense. It's like comparing apples to oranges, except worse. Apples to Moscow, or relativity, or something else not even in the fruit family.

If you cut taxes on the wealthy, sure, maybe somewhere that will directly or indirectly lead to some jobs created. But there's really no way to quantify that, or even to make a case for it being anywhere near the best way to stimulate the economy, because it's such a tenuous chain of "if this, then this, then this, then maybe this".

As Dr Pizza said up there, directly creating jobs with massive infrastructure improvements (OMG New Deal!) would do it. Tax breaks on CapEx might do it, a little, long term. Directly supporting things like job training programs for the unemployed would work. But giving rich guys more money and hoping they'll somehow turn that into hiring millions of people is a wildly optimistic stretch at best, and totally disingenuous at worst. The fact that the money could be used in other, certifiably more effective ways is just another strike against it.

If you cut taxes on the wealthy, sure, maybe somewhere that will directly or indirectly lead to some jobs created. But there's really no way to quantify that, or even to make a case for it being anywhere near the best way to stimulate the economy, because it's such a tenuous chain of "if this, then this, then this, then maybe this". it.

Look at it from the perspective of a 1% er, with a cut in tax rates they'll now be able to bypass the low interest loan on the porche and instead go for the kitted out Bentley with the inlay cherrywood interior. Thus, a few more low wage turtle wax polisher jobs will be created, and the car salesman will make an extra commission.

Look at it from the perspective of a 1% er, with a cut in tax rates they'll now be able to bypass the low interest loan on the porche and instead go for the kitted out Bentley with the inlay cherrywood interior. Thus, a few more low wage care wash polisher jobs will be created, and the car salesman will make an extra commission.

More likely, they'll park it in some overseas tax haven, where it gets cycled through several shell companies before being invested in commodity speculation, or some derivative bet against the Euro. Zero sum crap that only serves to further drive up oil/food prices and destabilize the EU.

A fun fact - The Cleveland Clinic, cited as a "model" by Obama during the debates, is not permissible under Obamacare. The Cleveland Clinic is owned by doctors. But Section 6001 of the ACA prohibits new physician-owned hospitals from starting up and it keeps existing ones from expanding.

A fun fact - The Cleveland Clinic, cited as a "model" by Obama during the debates, is not permissible under Obamacare. The Cleveland Clinic is owned by doctors. But Section 6001 of the ACA prohibits new physician-owned hospitals from starting up and it keeps existing ones from expanding.

So what?

Is there any link between the ownership model there, and their success in providing health care?

The doctors have a personal stake in saving money at the Cleveland Clinic. They put prices on supplies and equipment, keeping the doctor-owners conscious of the costs involved with their actions. The comp structure is also different; docs area paid a base salary with bonuses based on facility performance.

They do such a good job of delivering cost effective care because they have an interest in doing so, not because of some government mandate.

The doctors have a personal stake in saving money at the Cleveland Clinic. They put prices on supplies and equipment, keeping the doctor-owners conscious of the costs involved with their actions. The comp structure is also different; docs area paid a base salary with bonuses based on facility performance.

They do such a good job of delivering cost effective care because they have an interest in doing so, not because of some government mandate.

Stopping doctor owned hospitals does nothing to stop that performance model. I also think that it is a good idea as doctors should not be profit motivated but healthcare motivated. Think about it, if your hospital is owned by doctors they can decide what healthcare is, and if they are profit motivated where is the check on that system to prevent unneeded but expensive procedures from becoming the norm.

Doctor owned hospitals have an inherent conflict of interest, that's why it was banned in the 80's. The number of exemptions have changed a couple times, but the basic recognition of a problem isn't new to the ACA.

You can't pick a couple outliers and use that to decide if the ban is appropriate. I don't really know if it is or isn't, but your methodology for saying it isn't sucks.

And interesting thought. We know Obama is a good speaker, and he's fully aware of the power of the internet. They might have something here.

Whether or not it works, we'll see.

I think it's a little bit of both. Obama clearly came into the debate with a plan to not attack Romney on his lies directly. But it's not like he was particularly effective at getting his message across despite that.

That being said, it certainly seems like the story is shifting slightly in the days after the debate. It's not just about how Romney crushed Obama at the debate (though he did); it's also about Big Bird, and whether Romney's tax plan actually is deficit neutral, etc. At best, I think the post-debate coverage may be able to make the week a wash for Obama, though, rather than turning it into a win.

Better yet to make the campaign about lying in the campaign. Maneuver the narrative to the point where it's automatically understood that Romney will say something untruthful, and then make the game to cause the listeners to weigh each assertion for truth and then give a score at the end of the speech or address or debate or whatever.

And interesting thought. We know Obama is a good speaker, and he's fully aware of the power of the internet. They might have something here.

Whether or not it works, we'll see.

I think it's a little bit of both. Obama clearly came into the debate with a plan to not attack Romney on his lies directly. But it's not like he was particularly effective at getting his message across despite that.

That being said, it certainly seems like the story is shifting slightly in the days after the debate. It's not just about how Romney crushed Obama at the debate (though he did); it's also about Big Bird, and whether Romney's tax plan actually is deficit neutral, etc. At best, I think the post-debate coverage may be able to make the week a wash for Obama, though, rather than turning it into a win.

I would have to agree with you here. So far I haven't heard so much about Obama being beaten, but about all the random crap that Romney said.

Big Bird has fans that have turned things away from his performance to what he actually said. Very odd indeed.

The doctors have a personal stake in saving money at the Cleveland Clinic.

Conversely, they have a personal stake in making the most profits possible, damn the consequences.

Quote:

They put prices on supplies and equipment, keeping the doctor-owners conscious of the costs involved with their actions.

Administrative staff exist at non-doctor-owned clinics who typically ensure that everyone is quite well aware of things like "costs".

Quote:

The comp structure is also different; docs area paid a base salary with bonuses based on facility performance.

A merit-based system isn't at all different from other health care facilities. Doctors performing well = more people use the hospital = doctors get paid more (or leave for another facility that pays them more).

Quote:

They do such a good job of delivering cost effective care because they have an interest in doing so, not because of some government mandate.

I'm glad they're doing a great job. I am sure they will continue to do so, or will do an even better job, under PPACA.

Better yet to make the campaign about lying in the campaign. Maneuver the narrative to the point where it's automatically understood that Romney will say something untruthful, and then make the game to cause the listeners to weigh each assertion for truth and then give a score at the end of the speech or address or debate or whatever.

That would require comprehension of the untruth. Have you not read a single comment on a "Fox News" article ever? There's no comprehension there, just mouth-frothing stupidity.